Sacrifice
by DrkVrtx
Summary: "I saw that child's face when I had to make the call, smiling, laughing, following me wherever I went, and I saw my brother's. I picked him."


Huge, naked and smelling of rotting meat, the creature was the ugliest thing he had ever seen. Unfortunately, as its mandibles opened to expose razor sharp teeth, it was probably the last thing Crane would ever lay eyes on again. Until a rusty monkey wrench swung violently into the picture.

"Up, get up! Come on!"

A woman's hand fisted tightly into the collar of his shirt dragged Crane to his feet. She was no stranger to him, but the panic slipping into her accented voice was. Jade usually kept a calm head, even when in the thick of it. That was perhaps a bit more difficult now with a horde of Biters pressing itself into the narrow alley - and the Volatile the middle eastern runner had socked lying in a daze underneath a crumbling wall. Jade's swing had almost tore its jaw off. But the creature didn't need its teeth to tear their throats out, and unlike a Biter it took more than one good swing of a wrench to put the bastards down. The Volatile growled, scrabbling at the wall to pull itself up and raking dusty fragments loose. Meanwhile -

"Run!"

It was not the docile moan of a dozen brainless zombies that chased after them, but the screeches of monsters. Night changed them, as though to their dead, rotting bodies darkness was a form of steroids. What could be easily skirted around or distracted with bootleg firecrackers during the day suddenly became a very real threat, skulking with intent in the shadows of Harran's slums. The crowd of Biters tearing after Jade and Crane as they pelted down the alley were ravenous, shoving, tripping and clawing through the air at their heels. Scaling a building or two was enough to put them out of harm's way; most of the infected were too dumb to climb.

Most.

Pulling himself up onto the roof of a shack, Crane scrambled for a weapon as the Volatile snarled its way up off the street after them.

"Find us a safe zone!"

His partner was crouched at the other end of the corrugated sheet of steel, seeking out the tell-tale flare of UV lights. "I'm looking!"

"Look faster!" Crane shouted, swiping a pitted combat knife at the Volatile's knuckles. The creature screeched as it swiped back. Crane jerked away, reversing the blade in his grip and stabbing down at the Volatile's peeling, lopsided face. That almost cost him his arm when it pulled its head to the side and grabbed for his wrist, which he only just yanked out of reach in time.

"Jade!"

"There! Come on!"

Crane spun around to see the woman practically catapult herself off the shack. The snarling Volatile was only moments behind as he followed suit, sliding down the sloped roof into the street below. He could hear its claws scraping harshly against metal in its ferocious bid to catch them. Jade was ahead of him when Crane rolled after hitting the ground, vaulting over the hood of a busted car as he sprinted to catch up to her. It was a mean task, however; the woman was an athlete before the hell hole that was Harran City forced them all to learn how to run. So it was that she was several steps ahead of him when Crane heard the scream.

Time was a fickle thing when adrenaline was pumping hard and fast through the body. Crane felt it drag as he cast a wild look behind him. There was a man, running, with the small hand of a child gripped in his. The little girl's face was white with fear, fear Crane understood, because hot on their heels were the dead faces of a mob of Biters. Then, as the man cried out for help, as Crane began to turn, the Volatile he had momentarily forgotten dropped down into the middle of the street. And it ignored him entirely.

He saw the father's eyes bulge, all colour draining from his face as he sought frantically for a way out. But there wasn't one. All there was was Crane, and when their eyes met as the man swept his daughter up into his arms he was already moving forward. There was no thought, no moment of decision making. There was only the knife clutched in Crane's hand and the two lives he had to save.

"NO!"

Jade. Her arms wrapping around his body, holding him back. And in the same moment, the Volatile pounced.

"We have to _go_, now."

Muffled screams leaked out from underneath a writhing mass of Biters as the woman wrestled him back.

"We have to help them!"

"It's too late, Crane!"

More were squeezing around the sides of the street towards them, and a familiar, chilling screech from not too far off signalled even worse things to come. The air stank of death and it was choking him. Jade too, with her forearm across his throat, pulling him away, dragging him back against his reckless, single-minded will. Because all he could see was a hand reaching out to him, small and desperate. And then that too was gone.

* * *

"I don't think this cot is big enough for two people."

"You take it."

Crane, resting his arms on the dusty, concrete ledge, stared quietly out of the narrow gap cut into the wall towards the dark shapes beyond the brightly lit perimeter fence. The safe zone turned out to be a gas station, already occupied by a small group of civilians. He and Jade were the only ones to hail from the Tower, but that earned them no privileges over their fellow survivors. There wasn't much space to bed down and fewer makeshift beds to go around still. They had gotten themselves a musty smelling, military brown cot decorated with pockmarks and an unexplained stain or two, and a small cube of a room that sat on top of a building next to the gas station. From the look of it, the room had been recently re-purposed as some sort of a lookout. Whoever had occupied it however was nowhere to be found.

"I was going to suggest swapping on and off," Jade spoke then.

He gestured dismissively. "I'm fine."

"You should rest, Crane," the woman said after a brief pause. "We need to get back to the Tower first thing tomorrow and talk to Brecken."

"Right."

"I can't get in contact with any of the other teams we sent out tonight. It looks like Rais is hoarding all the Antizin drops. I didn't think his men were brave enough to go out at dark. "

"Yeah."

"...Are you even listening?"

"There was a kid there, Jade."

Silence grew between them, as tense as Crane's muscles as he turned around to face her. The woman's mouth was a tight, grim line.

"What is your point?" she asked.

"We stood back and let a _child_ die tonight. We could have saved her, and her father. We could have! But you -"

"I saved you instead," Jade bluntly cut across him, "because you were too busy being suicidal to notice the cause was lost."

"Then tell me what's the goddamn point bringing in Antizin drops if we're just going to ignore the lives it could be used to save."

"People are dying as we speak, Crane. We can't save everyone."

"That doesn't mean we don't even try," he retorted, throwing an arm out towards a city wrapped in a cold, ruthless night. "I didn't go out there tonight to watch children die in the streets!"

"Would you prefer to watch them die in the place you call home?" Jade said, a dark, haunted look in her eyes.

Crane was taken aback, straightening as the woman closed the distance between them. "What?"

"The infected, when they turn? They don't care what you are, man, woman, child or dog. You're just something to bite, something to kill," Jade told him, and without warning she grabbed the front of his shirt. "I have been here a lot longer than you have," she said fiercely, "and I've seen it all. I didn't ask for any of this. I didn't! But if you want to survive, you have to adapt; you must learn to make sacrifices. And sometimes, Crane, in this hell? You have to let some die so others can live."

It was a long moment before she spoke again after that. Jade's gaze, so furiously passionate, grew dim as it dropped away from his, lowering her face so he couldn't see her eyes. Her hands slowly released his shirt, bunched up in her fists and flattened against his body. He could feel the beat of his heart against her fingers, and the warmth and weight of the contact made him swallow. He heard Jade take a deep breath, as though to steady herself, and then she lightly patted his chest before turning away.

Crane watched as she walked back over to the cot - a short distance given the size of the room, and sat at its edge, retrieving her backpack from off the floor and zipping it open. He wondered if she was actually looking for something as Jade dug through the contents, a mishmash of objects clattering around unseen. She wore a carefully guarded expression, one he was familiar with. Most things Crane knew about the woman her brother had told him, and even then Rahim was tight-lipped with anything more than trivial details, like the shade of Jade's eye-shadow being her favourite colour. Right now, however, he could see cracks, small little things that she perhaps wasn't conscious of yet. He saw it when Jade blinked, quickly, like dust was itching at her eyes, and then in the way she sniffed and exhaled afterwards.

"Jade," he said, and waited until the woman looked up at him, "what happened?"

He was far too curious now not to ask. At worst she would answer him with silence, perhaps one that would last the night. It wouldn't be a first. But Crane had a feeling he would not be favoured with such treatment this time. It was why he walked over to join Jade on the cot. She finally pulled something out of her bag as he sat down, a wallet, and from that she produced a small sheet of paper, wrinkled and folded several times over. Crane opened it when she handed it to him. It was a picture, drawn by a child's hand.

"We used to use the lower floors in the early days of the Tower," Jade started, dropping her backpack to the floor. "There was about twice as many people in that building than there are now. Survivors, just looking for somewhere safe to hope and pray to be rescued. A lot of warm bodies."

She paused then and glanced across at the piece of paper in Crane's hand. The drawing was a simple thing, thick pencil lines depicting two stick figures side by side. One was taller than the other with the downward curving line of a ponytail attached to the side of its head. Both wore huge, beaming smiles, and their hands were joined. Just as quickly Jade was looking away again, blinking something out of her eyes.

"What was essentially a daycare was run on the first floor," she continued, interlacing her fingers in front of her. "I used to go down in my spare time or when Brecken didn't need me for anything and teach the children kickboxing. Basic things, mostly. It was more about taking their minds off the fact that the world had shattered all around us. They enjoyed it though, especially after I showed them posters and talked about my fights."

"You're famous," Crane said, "kids love that sort of the thing."

Jade agreed with a small, wistful smile. But it soon faded.

"One of them really looked up to me. He lost an older sister and I guess they were close. He lived in one of the first floor apartments with his mother. Wasn't particularly great in class, but he was a sweet child," she said. "He drew that picture for me, the morning before a mob of Biters attacked the Tower."

"You don't have to tell me the rest," Crane said considerately when Jade paused for a second time. The woman shook her head however, sniffed, and pressed on.

"It was stupid of us not to destroy access to the building at ground level the first chance we got. There were guards posted down there, sure, but no one expected the numbers of infected that showed up that night. The fact it was night made it worse. The Biters were in before we even knew what happened. It was chaos. Back then we didn't know how to handle the night like we do now. We didn't have UV lights and flares; we had explosives. Long story short, we couldn't push them out. They overran the ground floor...and were up onto the first before we could evacuate it." Jade swallowed, lifting her eyes to the far wall. "The call was to try and fight them off, or cut our losses and contain the damage. Brecken couldn't do it. So I made it. We destroyed all the first floor access points."

"It was a tough call to make, either way," Crane said eventually.

"That is what everyone tells me," Jade replied, "and I try to make myself believe them. But it wasn't tough. You see, every minute we were fighting the infected was one that my brother's life was at risk. I love Rahim. He is the only family I have left. Protecting him was the only thought in my head that night, Crane. I couldn't let the Biters get to him," she said, turning her eyes down to her hands. "I saw that child's face when I had to make the call, smiling, laughing, following me wherever I went, and I saw my brother's. I picked him. Think whatever you want of me; I will always pick him."

Crane took one last look at the picture before folding it up. "You're a good person at heart, Jade. I think that's really all that matters in the end."

Her fingers brushed against his hand when she took back the drawing, a lingering touch that was followed by a sigh. "I think the same of you," Jade spoke, turning to look at him. "I just wish that you stop trying to get yourself killed. You're a good man, Kyle. I've watched too many good people die. Not you," she said, "please."

He took a moment to let the weight of her words sink in, anchored in place by an earnest voice. He found himself drawn in by her bright, brown eyes, like a moth to a flame. It was the first time he had seen them so open and full of feeling, and Crane couldn't help but think how remarkably beautiful they were. He blinked and pulled his own away, finding his mouth curved with a small, lopsided smile.

"No promises."


End file.
